Date sent: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 11:41:32 EST
Subject: Re: Rosina 'pretty'?/coloratura showing off
To: vocalist
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

In a message dated 01/25/2000 1:26:15 AM Central Standard Time,
RossiniSop-at-aol.com writes:

<< Also, to go further along in another vein, coloratura exuberance does not
have be about showing off. Rossini used it to express joy and excitement,
and the singer should feel that when she's doing it--I do! >>

I totally agree that coloratura is not about showing off. I DO sing
coloratura, I do sing Rossini, and I feel that artistic singing involves
motivating every note that you sing, whether it's joy, excitement, sorrow,
etc. My problem with certain recordings of Ms. Horne and Ms. Bartoli (and
not all of their recordings, just certain ones) are that I don't feel the
motivation or perhaps I just disagree with the motivation.

For example: In Rossini's "Cantata Giovanna d'Arco", in the last section of
the piece, there is a repeat of a melody, "Corre la gioia di core in core."
My personal take on it is to slow down, ornament liberally, and revel in the
text, gradually accelerating to the coda. Ms. Bartoli takes it really fast
from the get-go. I don't feel like she's singing it faster from a
perspective of joy or giddiness - I just feel like, "And now I'll sing it
REALLY fast!!!"

I was not ripping into coloratura - I was saying that I don't like certain
choices that these two artists have made on some of their recordings.
Perhaps "pretty" wasn't the best choice of words - but at least Rosina should
sound feminine, and the ornament that I was addressing was a very unfeminine,
and to my ears, unpleasant choice.

I do not feel the same way toward coloratura that Wolfgang Hildesheimer does
in his book MOZART, in which he dismisses the soprano coloratura arias of
LUCIO SILLA with this comment:

"Today we can hardly believe that people listened to these arias with
patience or even pleasure ... incidentally, I usually feel the same way in
concertos when the cadenza is about to begin."

< and the singers who bring this to their singing, as Horne and Bartoli do.>>

I respect coloratura and ornamentation but there are certain choices that
people make that I don't particularly like. This is my opinion and I'm
basing it on experience as a performer, as a student, as a teacher, and as a
listener. I like both Ms. Horne and Ms. Bartoli most of the time - but there
are other singers of coloratura repertoire that touch me more emotionally.


Chris Thomas
Mezzo-Soprano
Wauwatosa, WI

"I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a"